Financial services firms in Asia-Pacific and Europe paid more in regulatory fines during 2025 than in the prior year, according to a report published by Fenergo, the financial compliance software provider. The findings signal that enforcement activity has intensified on both continents, keeping penalties near the elevated levels that have characterized the post-2020 enforcement environment.

Fenergo, which tracks regulatory enforcement outcomes affecting financial institutions, found that monetary penalties increased in 2025 across both APAC and European jurisdictions. The upward movement in both regions at the same time suggests regulators are not confining aggressive enforcement to a single hemisphere, and that global firms face heightened exposure wherever they operate.

What the increase means

The report's headline finding — fines up in both APAC and Europe — carries practical weight for compliance officers, general counsel and heads of financial crime at multinational institutions. Rising penalty totals typically reflect sustained supervisory focus on areas such as anti-money laundering controls, know-your-customer failures, sanctions breaches and reporting lapses, the categories that have driven the largest fines in recent enforcement cycles.

For practitioners, an upward trend in penalties on two continents argues for treating compliance investment as a jurisdiction-spanning exercise rather than a regional one. Firms with operations in both APAC and Europe cannot assume that a strong compliance posture in one market satisfies expectations in the other, since regulators in each region set and enforce their own standards.

The enforcement backdrop

Fenergo's annual tracking of regulatory fines has become a widely cited barometer of enforcement pressure on the financial services sector. The 2025 findings continue a pattern in which supervisors on both continents have shown willingness to impose substantial monetary penalties on institutions that fall short of regulatory expectations.

The increase in APAC is particularly notable for firms that have expanded into Asian markets. Enforcement authorities in the region have historically been viewed by some market participants as less punitive than their European and North American counterparts, but the 2025 figures indicate that penalty levels there are moving in the same direction as those in Europe.

For European institutions, the Fenergo findings confirm that the region's regulators maintained firm enforcement momentum through 2025, despite broader discussions in the market about deregulation and burden reduction in some jurisdictions. Fines rising rather than falling suggests supervisory priorities remained intact.

Practical consequences

The report points to several consequences for legal and compliance teams. First, penalty exposure should feature in risk assessments at the group level, with boards briefed on enforcement trends in every jurisdiction where the firm holds licences. Second, firms should verify that client onboarding, screening and monitoring systems keep pace with the regulatory expectations that drive the largest fines. Third, legal teams should prepare for enforcement proceedings as a realistic scenario rather than a remote one, given the rising penalty totals documented in both regions.

Fenergo's findings do not indicate that any individual firm faces imminent action. They do, however, confirm that the aggregate cost of regulatory non-compliance rose in 2025 in two of the world's principal financial markets, and that the trendline for enforcement remains upward.

Compliance leaders will likely use the report to benchmark their own programmes against the enforcement climate it describes. With fines climbing in both APAC and Europe, the cost of underinvestment in controls continues to grow.